Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 11 Media Availability | Wednesday, November 12th | Press Conference

Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 11 Media Availability | Wednesday, November 12th | Press Conference

Uh yeah, coach. Um just do you have any uh injury updates on some of the individuals coming out of the game and how you plan to get ready this week before the pay? So I got so much of it going on right now led with uh people and and moving parts. Which ones you’re exactly talking about? Um Malone, I guess, was the big one. DLO uh is going to miss, you know, time had the big time injury. Um so he’ll be going to IR, you know, that that was the big one. Um the other ones, you know, Chris came out good. uh really good obviously you know um no further uh issues. I mean obviously he’ll have some limitations in practice um and be dealing with um you know the toe thing but he played well went in there and gave us everything. I mean you can’t say enough positive things about Chris and how he played in that football game and stuff that he went through last week and being able to play for us was absolutely outstanding. Um Burge will be dayto-day this week. Um get a chance to see what’s going on. He looks better, feels better. Um no promises there but um that’ be the one that I can think about with Burge. Um, other than that, Sam Roberts got hurt in the game. Um, you know, obviously we have to make a decision there and see how he goes and see what’s going on there with Sam with Big Roberts. Um, and then obviously, um, Alf was at a concussion ending game, so he’s going through the protocol. Um, as a reminder of that, I don’t think there was anything else that in the game last week. Yeah, not from the game. Last week, we were talking about Storm. Do you think he’ll go on? Storm will probably end up having to go back to IR. Um, you know, that thing didn’t go as well as we wanted it to go and uh how it worked out. So he’ll end up going back on IR at some point. I think that probably happened today. I think his window closes today. Um so we’ll probably figure that out for ourselves today. Any anything else on missing injury rise? Leonard Leonard was the hamstring last week. You know, obviously um this week we’ll see. We was very hopeful for it to be this week. We obviously got to give him more time. He’s a vet, so I’ll give him all the way up until, you know, showtime. Um today he’ll probably be out. Um and we’ll get the I don’t want to say the official statuses. I’m going to screw it up and get in trouble somehow. But we’ll give you the status of Leonard Floyd and everything that’s happening. But um don’t plan on seeing him today. Give him to tomorrow. Give him all the way up until the week to to figure out what is actually going to be with Floyd. And Mike Hughes. Mike Hughes feel much better about it today. He practiced last week. Did some stuff for us. So like feel better about him getting involved. Um getting ready for him to go, you know, and alleviating some of the soreness that he had last week and being able to be better. Yeah. coach, as you get ready for um the Panthers, um what will be some of the issues? They have some good returners, too. You have the return issues last game. We did. We have return issues and we have running issues. All the all the things they do really well. Um these guys are running the ball as well as you can, you know, just about run in the last couple of weeks with Rico and some of those guys got going on Chubba. Um those guys have been doing a nice job. They’re also getting some real some gadget plays out of their young receiver. um being able to get some awesome rushing yards there and then obviously Bryce creates those same problems with being able to scramble and do all the things that they can do um from that standpoint. So these guys present a big challenge for us on defense and in the return game like you just mentioned um they were doing some really nice things. So that’d be a nice spot for us to be able to go get some major corrections from last week um in order to go find a way to try to win. What have your conversations been like with um Michael Penn because it it felt like in that press conference it was the most down and frustrated I’ve ever seen. He is extremely hard on himself. Um he is um a very high character, very accountable um to almost to the almost to the point of fault at times like you know like there’s a lot of things that they have to go on with the operational piece when it comes to offense and he’s controlling a lot and doing a lot of things for a young football player and and watching his development go and what he’s able to handle and able to do and able to get us into and other things able to get us through with the good plays, the bad plays. Um there will be some up and downs obviously when you’re a young quarterback and you’re going through those those emotions, but um I definitely had to talk to him about being that hard on himself um in those moments um in those times, right? Um this league is full of adversity and you’re going to deal with those adverse moments. And I think it’s up to us to be able to help him through those situations to let him know like we have to make some of those plays for him as well. um both as players and as coaches um to be able to alleviate some of the problems that he that he that he thinks he’s is having, you know, and then the obvious ones, the ones that he wants the throws backs, you know, you can’t do anything about them because he’s such a talented thrower, like, you know, he wants to settle up and get his feet right and be able to get those things done so he can get those balls thrown the correct ones. The ones that he wants to do for himself that he puts a lot of pressure on himself that way. Um just let him know like those things are going to happen. They happen to the best of quarterbacks. And like you know the the reality of it is that none of us know what it’s like to be a quarterback in the National Football League. So you got to be able to have him speak with people that have been in his shoes or people that are in his like shoes. And like when he’s able to do those things that provides the comfort for him that that um is definitely including his coaches that includes other guys that have played the position that includes all type of things that you can have happen for the young man to be able to support him that way. Um because let’s let’s be honest like none of us can take a snap, make a play call, you know, throw it, go through all the the gymnastics that’s required to have as a quarterback and that’s why those guys are special. Is that something like you do with him? Like you pull up tape too to help him see it or like like things like that when you’re breaking it down with them. So it’s a lot for for quarterbacks they got such a visual memory, right? is that, you know, you talk to a quarterback, they can explain every part of the play, the details of it, what happened, what the adjustment should have been, how we made the adjustment, how I went through my check. It’s it’s easier to even talk to him without the tape. You know, when you talk to him with the tape, it’s usually in front of a group, in front of people, in front of that room, that setting, all those type of things. You can do a very very good tool. But when you’re able to see try to put yourself in his shoes to have to remember the moment like it’s happening live like he does extremely well. Um those are things you like to talk to him and it it it provides um a little bit of relief for him because I’m I’m letting him know like it’s okay to be vulnerable in that moment. But at the same time don’t be so disgruntled and hard on yourself that you that you that you blame yourself for everything. And it’s like you know it’s the reasons why after those tough press conferences like I is it is my job to go protect him. It’s like, hey man, he he played well. We can get better. You know, he’s doing a really good job as a young football player in this league and especially a quarterback. Do you remember the first time you had like one of those conversations with him about cuz I mean you obviously accountability is a good thing, but there’s a way to manage that, right? So, you remember having that that conversation for the first time with him? Uh, I think the first time he actually got a chance to show you guys some real vulnerability was probably last week. You know, he’s comes out, he’s always accountable, he does all those things, but I tell him all the time it’s our job to help him as well. um from the other player standpoint, from the coaches standpoint, from from all of us. So, you know, realistically, when the thoughts happen before you even talk to Michael, those conversations are had amongst our leadership group, amongst our coaching staff, amongst our players, with our players, and after that with the players. And like I think um those are the most important moments. So, like the first time you have it, it’s just ongoing, right? Like where communication lacks, negativity fills the void. And I want to make sure that never happens with our quarterback or with anybody. So like the constant communication, being able to help him throughout the process of everything of growing in this league is is something I want to be helping with. His confidence is one of his great traits, right? Yes. How do you as a coach make sure because there’s going to be things that out of his control, out of your control that are going to happen. How do you make sure he stays as as much on an even keel as he as he can? I don’t worry about the confidence factor or the even kill part. I do worry about the extreme ups and downs, right? Because like it’s like me, right? Like I don’t always feel like I look to you guys. I’m never going to like show you how I feel at those moments because I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than Mike, right? Michael’s half my age. Crazy for me to say. And I’ve been standing in front of you guys for a very long time and got a lot of experience with being able to hide those type of emotions and be able to get up here and express my opinions very clearly and very open and honest to you guys as I possibly can be at the time with the amount of truth that I want to give you. Right? And then before that, I’m probably having those moments where I don’t feel great. Yeah. Or I do want to maybe choke a DLED or something. Not really DEL. Love you. So, you need the poker face. Yes. But it’s just like, you know, but you got to be able to, you know, take some time, be able to have that emotion. Um, be able to talk to that, be able to deal with that, and then be able to come up here and like know what’s happening, how to correct it, and be able to move on. Um, and like you know, as a young coach, you gave yourself that that those those moments of you gave yourself up until that Monday was over to be able to feel a little bit of that anger. Then as you get into those higher and higher roles, whether it’s quarterback or this head coach, whatever it is, any type of form of a leader, you better be able to transition a little bit quicker than that. Do you feel do you feel like the the issues that are going on with, you know, with him in the offense, is it is it more of a an experience mental thing compared to a physical thing? Is it half and half? How would you kind of evaluate that? So, our biggest problem right now is third down, right? You can just just put a nail on that, right? Because like we don’t have any problem moving the football. We got no problem throwing the football. We got, you know, we have moments where we run the football like the best team in the football league. We have moments we we struggle to run the football, but you can always identify some things and fix those things. Right? Right now, we have the last couple of weeks we have some issues with third down. So, we got to figure out how to be our best when our best is required at those best moments. Right? The money down situations. If we fix the money down situations, that’ll fix a lot of our permeating problems that we’ve had the last couple of weeks. That’ll keep us on the grass. That’ll alleviate that’ll give us our time possession that we want. That’ll give us more plays on first and second down. That gets the yards that everybody else wants. That gets the touches to the people that we got to get the touches to. That gets us down the grass that scores touchdowns. That helps our defense out. Helps our special teams out in the moments even though we didn’t help ourselves last week. Um those are all the things that we got to be to do. So like every problem um you got to be identify those problems. We got to be able to go fix them. And we haven’t been to do that the last week. And that’s that’s on us. That’s on us collectively and all together. So like each one of those third downs has a different entity. You know, the biggest thing I can tell you is stay out of third and long like we’ve been in and we’ve been in the most in the National Football League over the last couple of weeks. It’s all come across the wire. There’s a few wide receivers that were worked out. Is that an area that you looking to add or or would like to add? You know, it’s it’s crazy because we work I feel like we work out people almost every single week and that’s just something that Terry and the whole staff does. Like we’re always constantly trying to find people, right? So, you go get people, you go work them out, you get excited about them. Um, you’re thinking about future plans, you think about what could happen, what’s happening down the road. Um, the amount of injuries that we talk about, I get up, like I talk with DLED, every week, you better have some answers, right? And you got to have people to be make sure your practice squad is ready to go and you get people time to be able to move up. You know, just last week, we had an emergency with our snapper with the baby situation and you know, he’s having his baby yesterday and had it and you know, everything is great, right? But like you just never know. So, you’re just constantly doing those things and those are the reason you work out people so you can make sure you can continue to get better. You know, obviously the receiver thing will come up because we hadn’t played as well as the number two spot so to speak. Um, so that’s always going to be better. But got a lot of confidence in what we’re going to do with Mooney. You know, got a lot of confidence in Kyle on a great bounceback day. Um, and you know, even the bounce back halfway through the game, we just can’t have the the flaws in the beginning. Um, so like I got a lot of confidence in the guys and Seal’s getting out there getting his feet wet, doing some different things for us, helping us out. And we got to get Casey going and some of the stuff he done in the offseason that we saw. Um, so obviously I definitely understand the question, but we’re always looking to improve the roster. We’re always looking to get better. We’ve talked so much about Bjon Robinson this season, but what kind of season is Tyler Algier having? He had two touchdowns in Berlin. He’s a stud. You know, Tyler is the the the least talked about superstar in our football team probably. And like he’s one of those guys that just comes to work every day and does his job. And you know, we talk about these operational executions, these operational piece, and it’s just what Tyler is, right? wherever you put him, whatever you ask him to do. Um, he’s able to go out there and have that resiliency and that toughness that’s able to just play the game, play the play, whatever it is, and be able to go. So, that’s that’s why we love him. He’s awesome. Uh, how long I guess like realistically, do you look at the tape from the last time you played the Panthers or do you say we were completely different team from then? No, you you definitely look at it because you got to figure out what happened, what went wrong early, right? And you know, like a little bit of that was some resiliency of missing those two early, you know, kicks. You know, like you drove the ball down really well and you miss a kick and that’s kind of disheartening. Then you drop down again, you miss another one. That’s disheartening. And it’s disheartening for your offense, but your defense showed great resiliency that day. I mean, had a couple uh turnovers that day, which is uncharacteristic. I think we had two that day, interceptions. I know it was two interceptions for sure. One for a pick six, which is uncharacteristic as we know for 10 games in or 11 games in, whatever is for Michael. Um we had another p pick down the field um gave a couple shorts fields, whatever the case may be and our defense was able to go out there and show great resiliency and stand up and play, you know, halfway decent on a just an awful day, right? So you got to take that from it, but you definitely got to go look at it so you don’t come out and start that way. You don’t come out and finish that way and you can come out and find ways to thrive and get better. So you never wash it. You never put it away. Um it’s there. It’s on the cutups this week and you better go look at it. Rico is obviously season, right? Um, how do you take what you’ve done, what happened last week and and turn it into potentially a positive moving game? You know, it’s it’s going to be the same thing every week, right? You got to find a way to fix what you did the week before. Um, win, lose, or draw, right? We were that close away from winning that game. We still would be fixing the 300 yard rushing day that the Indianapolis coach had on us, right? So, like, you got to find a way to stop that, eliminate that, shut that down. You got to find a way to give yourself extra tools, extra bullets to be able to go stop Rico. Rico’s had, I think, two 200 yard rushing games. Um, I think he’s rushed for the most amount of yards since a certain week or whatever the case may be. He’s done some really explosive things. He played against his former team. He’s playing um like a man possessed. Um, and and like you know, when you’re not playing them, those that’s the kind of guys you cheer for, right? The guys you didn’t know that just bumped out of nowhere and just started balling and and that’s what he’s been able to do. But like for the team, I think just just the natural resiliency to go out there and be a player every single week and find the ways to correct the problems that you have from the week before without making new ones. Do you have a Divine Diablo update? Uh yeah, he comes off of his uh window next week. I believe the four weeks is up next week. Yeah, I don’t want to lie to you. So you can check that later if I’m lying. Just don’t write about it. Went on week eight. If I’m lying about it, don’t worry about it. But I believe uh it’s looking good. It’s looking good. Um you know, and then obviously hopefully I’m talking about that to you next week. So week 12 we could see I hope so. I think so. I believe so. Don’t want to give you any guarantees, you know. Um, not Dr. Hammond, but I looks good. As far as special teams goes, um, how much of the how much of that is correctable? How much of that is just a weekby- week thing? That is very correctable. I mean, that was all correctable issues, you know, have holding leverage, ripping off, making some of those tackles, you know, not allowing guys to make critical plays at critical moments on the return game, um, is very correctable. you know, how we cover, how we punt, um, getting the ball outside the numbers and things, whatever we want, getting the ball wherever we want to get it. Um, in order to get the guys where they can get lined up so they can make those tackles, all the correctable things. And, uh, I know we can go out there and correct those things and get it done, especially with the people we have, Mike Ford Juniors, you know, the Felipe Franks. We got some real big-time leaders from a special team standpoint in this team that can go out there and fix those things for us. And then thoughts about just the the Panthers on defense and just what you’ve seen from them. You know, um, they they’ve done a really nice job, right? You know, they were much maligned last year. got got a lot of critical thoughts about them and then they come back this year and been a bounce back and really, you know, put together really good coaching. Uh, put together some players out there that I believe and they’re out there playing very hard. You know, obviously they got big Derek Brown back in the middle. Um, you know, Asan Robinson, a bunch of guys that I, uh, I know very well from LA. Um, you know, obviously, um, guys playing at a very high level, whether it be Nick Scott, um, whatever the case may be, you know, um, all out there playing for those guys and they’ve put together a system that they know well. Um, they got some new guys out there playing. Their corner, um, is playing very well. um to the boundary and and doing a lot of really good things and um he had a nice game versus us last week and um I can’t wait to see the match up between him and Drake again. What point in your career did you get used to the ups and downs and dealing with us and holding your emotions up? It’s been very it’s been very early, you know, to be honest with you. You get into the game when you’re 2002 when you’re whatever age you are and you find out very quickly that you cannot ride the emotional roller coaster because these six days come very fast and you got ready to deal. Um, I had very good mentorship and leadership around me. Whether it was Mike Tomlin, whether it was Monty Keifin, whether it’s Rob Marinelli, um, whether it was Joe Barry, um, any of those guys I was with in Tampa, um, you know, John Gruden on offense and all of that staff. And you got to be able to flip the switch pretty quick and move on. You got to be able to correct it. You got to be able to stand in front of people and talk about it. Um, and you got to be ready to deal with it as we go out there. We’re entertainers, right? So when we go out and entertain, man, like none of that matters. That’s all gray matter. And you got to go out there and you got to do what you need to do to try to win football games. Just if I can follow up on that. Yes. You said you had to talk to Michael about about that. Not had to. Um chose to, you know, like it’s a different Charles like you know like you know like having to talk to him is meaning I I didn’t want to Chuck you know like like I want to go out there and make sure we are in a place that is better and I want to make sure we can learn how to grow every single day. Our you can’t have regular regular relationships and expect to do extraordinary things. And if we got regular relationships, we won’t be great. And like in order for him to know that I got his back and everybody in this organization got his back and really this fan base got his back. That’s the only thing that matters. Didn’t mean to cut you off, Charles. Well, yeah. I was just I was going to lead into Do you feel like he he got that message? You feel like he he received it in the right way? Yeah. I love it because like we talked about um you know, after the Carolina game that was that was a big adversity day, right? and like the and talked about that bounce back on that Monday and what it looked like and it propelled us to a win. Um, and how he came back and how he addressed his team and how he took ownership of it and it’s just more learning experiences, right? And like no matter what happens, no matter where you’re at, as we clearly can see, you can be in Berlin no matter what it is. Um, you got to be able to accept it, be able to deal with it, trust your process, trust the people around you, and get ready to go. Co coach, for the run defenses, do you um Is it a scheme thing? Can y’all I’m sorry. Say it again. The Well, fixing the run defense, you look at the scheme or do you add more power to the scheme or is it a speed issue? Well, you know, you know, last week it was a bunch of different things. It was not like one thing you put your your finger on when it’s a a big day like that from a big time backup. You know, a lot of it was, you know, Taylor, let’s be honest. You know, he made some people miss. Um, you got to get him on the ground. You know, there were some scheme things that happened there. There was some obvious um scramble situations from the quarterback spot that you know, you got to be able to watch a guy that can move around as well as he can um to that can be explosive. You know, there was some desperation situations where you can find a way to get better better plays out there and and do different things for all of us. So, like there’s a lot of different things you can do. You know, some scheme, you know, some play, um some coaching, some everything. You know, when you have that kind of day, you know, everybody all hands on deck take takes take accountability. What have you seen from Walker just since he’s come back from injury? Three sacks. fired up about fired up about how he’s playing and I and I I uh I hate for the young man he hadn’t been able to you know get some wins um with the way he’s been playing you know all those guys up front they you know playing hard playing physical is what he’s been able to do he’s brought us some real leadership um some authentic leadership from from a young guy um he’s bringing us um a style of play um and he’s turned into that that that that leader that we thought we can be when we drafted him and like I I I love watching him grow and mature um here as a Falcon Thanks y’all. Thanks guys.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris speaks with the media as the Falcons get set for a divisional matchup against the Carolina Panthers this Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@AtlantaFalcons

#AtlantaFalcons #RiseUp #NFL #Falcons